I don't want to hear from the Minneapolis public schools or any of these leftist "we-need-more-money-for-education" cheerleaders telling me they need more money.
COSMETOLOGIST????? OJIBWE?????
WHY ARE WE PAYING HARD EARNED TAX DOLLARS TO TEACH COSMETOLOGY AND A DEAD LANGUAGE????
I can understand cosmetology in that it teaches a trade, but jeez, talk about low expectations! What, just because they go to the inner city schools they'll never become doctors or engineers? So let's set them up to become salonists???
And Ojibwe???? I'm sure it's interesting, but how is teaching a dead language going to help a student find a job???
The motto for the Minneapolis Public Schools is;
"Minneapolis Public Schools; Expect Great Things."
It aught to read;
"Minneapolis Public Schools; Setting Your Kids Up for Failure"
So...
ReplyDeleteare you looking at jobs in the public schools? Or you just randomly came across this?
Note a more disturbing trend at work here as well; "bilingual" and "bicultural" in three languages that are very much alive and kicking in the Twin Cities Metro Area. Perhaps it's me, but I do not recall my immigrant ancestors being taught in their respective languages (Danish, Swedish, Drunken Belligerent) when they were in school here, nor do I recall there being a "bicultural" school system being set up here, except in the sense of "we don't like you, in a cordial way, but you'll get over it".
ReplyDeleteThis is what happens when fashions change in education.
Tom - No friend who is looking for jobs in education (though he is becoming quickly deterred) saw this and just dropped. He opined whether you needed a "teaching license in cosmetology." Scary.
ReplyDeleteMahan - I have no problem with bi-lingual education if that language is of another major population and economic importance. We should be learning Chinese or Spanish or Arabic or Russian which would have merit. But "multi-cultural" education? Sheesh! Can't you just go to the local ethnic part of town or the library and get a book and take in the culture? Somehow culture has to be "taught" with tax dollars? Again, it's just a way to provide employment to teachers, not to help out the kids.
Language capability is good for export trade. I do a lot of work in South America and have learned to read Spanish on-the-job. I can't write it, but fortunately the engineers on the Client side learn to read English during their education. Our email conversations look really strange with me reading their Spanish and replying in English; then they read my English and reply in Spanish.
ReplyDeleteHaving Spanish as a second language is not politically correct in Canada. I've been informed that I'm supposed to have French as my second language -- except I do more trade with Chile than I do with Quebec. Hmm, perhaps the government needs to do something about that?
Yeah, but why learn French? With their work ethic (French or French Canadians) the potential economy you're dealing with is what, $3.28 total GDP? You throw in all of Latin America and their work ethic, Spanish is something to learn.
ReplyDeleteCapt,
ReplyDeleteAre you talking about the Latin America of Bolivia, Argentina, Venezuela? Is there any difference to France?
touche!
ReplyDeleteAlright, I mean outside those countries, the likes of Mexico, Brazil (though they speak Portegese), Paraguay, Colombia, etc. are economically large and hard-working enough it would be worth learning Spanish.
*sighs resignedly*
ReplyDeleteIt is obvious that once again, I need to educate you in the ways if How This Works In Reality (an irony, since the educational system has little, if anything, to do with reality).
You see, the fad for bilingual/multicultural education has exactly nothing to do with actually preparing students for The Real World. Instead, students from immigrant communities are educated almost solely in their native languages, and emerge from these classes at a significant disadvantage in English, rather than speaking BOTH languages at a level of fluency.
This is not a "language requirement", such as you or I or other posters may have had to take in school; this is instead an attempt to keep the immigrant population immersed in their own cocoon, for whatever reason, rather than have them learn to communicate with the society at large.
Tell me, is there an economic benefit to this?
Furthermore, while I agree that it is to our benefit to have the option to learn languages, I see no reason to be coerced into doing so. Let the market decide...right?
Here are few observations.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I don't think the purpose of education is to help people find a job. Education should be about cultivating a person to be able to prosper on their own terms. Education is like any other human enterprise, and it should proceed within the scope of one's own self-interests. If that includes securing a job or creating an entirely new industry, then great. But education that focuses on helping people find a job is ultimately a dead end, too. Instead, education should be about learning to think, to critique, to compare, to synthesize, and to create. With these tools, one can do almost anything.
Second, why are you surprised that government education is inefficient and wrongheaded? What we need to do is uniformly turn education over to the free market to allow *gasp* individuals and their families determine what they want to learn in response to market demand and personal, enlightened self-interest. That's how capitalism ultimately benefits everyone.
In Georgia, the Atlanta City School System spends about $13,000 per child. It is simultaneously one of the most expensive and worst government education systems in the country. By contrast, my wife and I spend approximately 1/3 that amount on each of our three children, and the education they are receiving is excellent. A free market education is ultimately the only way to ensure that individuals experience the greatest freedom possible while almost ensuring the greatest good for all.
http://thalespress.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-we-home-school-faq.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-goldberg12jun12,0,4683079.column?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338
Third, I'm not so sure that learning a dead language is such a bad thing, even Ojibwe. Learning to converse in another language is not about learning a vocabulary list of words and how to map them between the words of another language. It is ultimately about interpretation, about understanding the intended meaning of another person within the scope of the context of their experience. Interpreting others' intentions goes along way in a free market society primarily because it helps you understand the world from another person's pespective. Given that, you are more likely to see the problems and prejudices in your own thinking, to achieve greater alignment in intention with others with whom you desire to coordinate your efforts, and to undermine the efforts of those who wish to enslave you or subject you to tyranny. This process of learning to interpret and communicate is the foundation of transactions, monetary, social, defensive, and romantic. Furthermore, Latin and Classical Greek are all but dead, but learning them is a great foundation for understanding English and other Germanic and Romance languages. So while learning Ojibwe specifically may not be of immediate help to anyone, the process of learning this language or any language ought to inform any sufficiently intelligent person how language and communication work. I don't care who you are, that's a good thing.
No doubt, Spanish and Chinese might have better utilitarian value. But I do recall being told from 8th grade through high school that in order to live successfully after college, I simply must learn Japanese or I would not be successful in the coming economic landscape in which Japan would dominate. None of those forecasts turned out to be true.
I'd say the chances of Spanish or Chinese being useful are just a tad bit better than your odds of achieving the same with Ojibwe.
ReplyDeleteUnderstanding others within the scope of their own experiences is fine and all, but how is learning a language that practically nobody speaks going to help with that?
Learning another language has benefits, sure. Now lets ditch the fuzzy feel-good thinking and think like economists for a second: what is the opportunity cost of teaching kids Ojibwe? Could these kids perhaps be learning a useful language instead?
Robert,
ReplyDeleteA couple of things you said make sense, such as free market private education is better than the collectivist airy fairy brain-wash we now have in public ed.
However, the rest of your gas-bagging was .... well ..... boring and made little sense.
Public education was created specifically to prepare the public for the work place. The primary items to be learned were.
Punctuality,
Reading,
Writing
Arithmetic.
These traits were missing in the public at the beginning of the industrial age. In order to get the larger work force needed. Some pub-ed was required. Note punctuality being equal to the others.
The classical idea of education that you yak on about was always there for the idle rich and the elites of the day. That is where it should remain. Of course anyone has the opportunity these days of educating themselves in anything and to any level almost for free ... on line. If you can read, you find out anything else you want to know ... right? However, that does require individual motivation and desire. That can't be instilled by the tax payers dollar.
Education for self-actualization is a luxury and it will not do much for kids when they are starting out in life with no money. This type of ed would be wasted on the average young pleb nowadays. Check out what most of then are really interested in and you will pull your hair out.
The majority of people wind up with boring low end jobs. They go forward with only high school or often not even that much. Speaking Ojibwe or any other non English or perhaps non Spanish language at the water cooler or the loading dock is just silly.
Although I have a couple of friends who do well with Ebonics in some inner city places where they deliver pizza and chicken.
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ReplyDelete"robert said... Education should be about cultivating a person to be able to prosper on their own terms."
what... like teaching ghetto thugs small arms field maintenance?
piss on that reading, writing and 'rithmatic shit, huh homie?
not acceptable
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There is nothing wrong with teaching a "dead" language--in university, not in high school. That is, unless that dead language were Greek or Latin. What happened to those "dead" langauges?
ReplyDeleteI'm even against teaching latin and greek. I'm against gaelic, klingon or any other language being taught in K-12 that will not help that kid get a job.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Ojibwe is not a dead language. Many people still speak it.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ojibwa
Yes, but it's like gaelic, sure a handful of people speak it, but it is no longer the main way they communicate, it still is a dead language.
ReplyDelete